Development Alternatives Incorporation

ABOUT DAI

MISSION

At DAI, we are passionate about what we do.

DAI has built a diverse body of work comparable in scope and impact with any development firm in the world. But we are far from complacent. Despite our global scale, our record of success, and our deep-rooted client and partner relationships, DAI remains today what it was as a fledgling company in the 1970s: innovative, alert, self-critical, and forward-looking—consistently driven by a powerful sense of corporate purpose.

DAI's mission is to make a difference in the world by helping societies and economies become more prosperous, fairer and more just, safer, more stable, more efficient, and better governed.

In pursuing this mission, DAI's employee owners observe an ethic of integrity, respect, collaboration, and excellence. As a company, we hold true to three core commitments: to our customers' success, to employee opportunity, and to the long-term prosperity of the firm. We strive to achieve sustainable growth and strong business results so that we can fulfill all three of these core commitments.

Our experience over almost four decades has taught us to nurture and combine these basic strengths:

• In-depth understanding of development drivers and constraints at both macro and micro levels
  
• Creative yet practical innovation delivered in a timely, flexible, and responsive manner
  
• Fielding project management teams that combine the best available international and local talent
  
• Producing results that meet, and usually exceed, the high expectations of our clients
  
  

Backed by comprehensive, sure-footed project management systems and on-the-ground presence worldwide, our technical specialists reach freely across DAI's sectors to deploy these basic strengths and bring all of DAI's relevant resources to bear on solving problems for our clients.

OUR VISUAL IDENTITY

At DAI, we're proud of what we stand for and we embody that pride in our visual identity.

This identity is built around the DAI colors—brown, green, and blue—and the DAI logo, which presents the colors in a three-bar flag, with brown at the base and blue at the top.

• Brown stands for foundations—the bedrock experience borne of 2,000 long-term projects implemented over almost four decades in 150 countries. And it speaks to the fact that our work cultivates the organic material of development: the social, political, and economic roots from which stability, equity, and prosperity can grow.
• Green stands for results—the fruit of the work we deliver to our clients and their beneficiaries, and the tangible difference we make in people's lives.
• Blue stands for aspirations—our goals as a company that values learning and continuous improvement, and the vision that our clients and beneficiaries hold for their own future.

By combining these colors in our logo—building from earth brown to sky blue in one compact graphic—we hope to convey the comprehensive approach we take to development here at DAI.

At heart, though, the logo is simply a flag. We chose the flag because it is a universal symbol of allegiance. We wanted an emblem we could put on any DAI deliverable anywhere in the world that would say we stand by this, and we take ownership of it.

In this sense, the flag says what any flag says: these are our colors, and this is what we stand for.

DAI Advancing Human Prosperity


OUR WORK

SECTORS

The world is not a laboratory.

Nobody knows better than DAI the fallacy of seeing development projects as neat, compartmental assignments. Conflict mitigation shades into issues of effective civil society, legitimate governance, equitable use of natural resources, and poverty reduction. Poverty reduction in turn intersects with economic reform, global competitiveness, multinational corporation involvement, and increasingly HIV/AIDS.

DAI is a company with the depth and breadth of coverage to take on this challenging environment.

Economic Growth
Enhancing productivity in agriculture and other sectors of the economy to build prosperity and reduce poverty
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Governance
Building effective economic and democratic governance
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Health
Delivering results at the intersection of human health, animal health, and livelihoods
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Nature
Enabling development in a sustainable way that respects the environment and the livelihoods that depend on it
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Stability
Using the full spectrum of development activities to promote stability, mitigate conflict, and bridge the gap between relief and development
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Corporate Sector
Helping corporate clients to succeed in their developing world operations.
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REGIONS

Our mission is global and so are we.

We have worked in 150 countries since 1970. From our first U.S.-based research projects to the present scope covering some 60 countries at any given time, DAI has always been a company to think globally and act locally. We are able to serve our clients and their beneficiaries all over the world and we continue to seek opportunities to expand our experience, extend our local presence, and broaden the impact of our work.

PROJECTS

Transforming development concepts and strategies into sustainable solutions

DAI confronts development challenges in a wide range of practices and in countries that span the development spectrum. For example, we help hillside farmers raise their incomes in Haiti, strengthen the credit system for Moroccan entrepreneurs, harmonize natural resource use in the Philippines, mitigate conflict in Liberia, and foster responsive local governments in Serbia. In all of our projects, we work with local organizations to ensure that all programs emphasize inclusion, participation, and sustainability.

We invite you to explore DAI's project directory to learn more about our global development activities.

EXPERTS

Sustainable development requires a blend of practical knowledge and market-based incentives

At DAI we are confident that our development experts are the best in the world. Our professionals are recognized as technical leaders with extensive field experience from all over the globe. They are dedicated to serving our clients and the communities in which we work to the best of their abilities. And they place a priority on sharing our innovation and experience to better international development practices worldwide.


PUBLICATIONS

DAI produces a number of publications annually including our quarterly newsletter Developments, the Developments companion piece DAIdeas, and our annual publication Developing Alternatives.

You may download our publications electronically using Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you prefer to order a paper copy of a publication, please send an email with your contact information to marcia_liu@dai.com.

DAIDEAS

DAIdeas, launched in spring 2004, is a companion publication to our Developments newsletter. Designed to showcase innovative thinking in capsule form, DAIdeas continues DAI's long tradition of creative thinking married to practical implementation and positive results.

DEVELOPMENTS

Developments is DAI's quarterly newsletter. With a circulation of 4,000, it highlights the achievements of the firm's overseas technical assistance projects and the activities of staff based in DAI's corporate offices.

DEVELOPING ALTERNATIVES

Developing Alternatives provides a forum for DAI's professional staff to share their ideas in some depth and address issues of topical interest. With a circulation of several thousand, the journal is widely read by development practitioners, including staff of the World Bank, United Nations, regional development banks, bilateral donor agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and universities around the world.